Part 22 (1/2)
The Royston Union was formed in 1835, consisting of 29 parishes in Herts., Cambs., and Ess.e.x, as at present.
The first chairman was John Bendyshe, Esq., J.P., of Kneesworth, and John George Fordham, Esq., was vice-chairman. Mr. Henry Thurnall was appointed Clerk (an office he continued to hold for forty years), Mr.
Thomas Wortham, auditor, and Mr. J. E. Fordham, of Melbourn Bury, treasurer.
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For the purposes of the administration of relief, the Union was at first divided into three districts, or divisions as they were called, and a relieving officer for each was appointed at L80 a year salary.
This arrangement, however, only lasted a short time, and a re-arrangement was made dividing the Union into two districts as at present, with a Relieving Officer for each at a salary of L120 a year.
Previous to the erection of the ”Central Workhouse,” as it was at first called, the Guardians held their meetings weekly at the Red Lion Inn, on Fridays, and the first meeting held on 3rd July, 1835, lasted, we are told, from ten o'clock in the morning to four o'clock in the afternoon.
One of the first acts of the new Authority was to secure a suitable site for the erection of a Workhouse upon, and having secured of Mr.
Luke his meadow in Baldock Street, plans were drawn up by Mr. William Thomas Nash for a building to accommodate 350 inmates; the contract for the building was obtained, and carried out by Mr. Gray, of Litlington, and a loan of L7,700 was obtained from the Loan Commissioners.
Before the new order of things had gone far, and ere the walls of the Workhouse were up, the paupers of the old school set up a sort of vested interest in the old order, became dangerously discontented at the prospect of having to work, and the ill-advised action of individuals fanned this into a flame of indignation under which the pauperised element in the villages was encouraged to look upon the great central Workhouse arising on the borders of Royston Heath as a sort of bastille, where for the misfortune of being poor they were to be shut away from their kith and kin, and no longer to have any claim upon the Overseer for that convenient subsidy of ”making up” whenever they did not think well to work. So strong did the feeling become that there were disturbances in several parishes, especially in the two Mordens, where the opprobrious Relieving Officer met with anything but a friendly reception on his first visits, and certain individuals from that parish, on applying for relief, found that the supply was cut off until it was safe for the Relieving Officer to enter their paris.h.!.+
About the same time a dreadful fire occurred at Ba.s.singbourn which was so closely a.s.sociated in the popular mind with the prevailing discontent that the services of a ”Bow Street Runner” to scour the district in search of the incendiary were paid for out of the rates.
Efforts were made to reconcile the inhabitants in the villages to the new order of things, and for a very sensible letter or address to the inhabitants which was written (and printed and circulated) by the late Mr. Henry Thurnall, the writer was specially commended by the Poor-law Commissioners.
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Another active and sagacious worker in the cause of popularising the reform was Mr. John George Fordham (the vice-chairman of the Board), who did not hesitate to pay repeated visits to all parts of the district during the riots already described, and endeavoured by every reasonable means to quell the popular irritation which had existed for some time before the formation of the Union in antic.i.p.ation of the new Poor-law. For similar services to these, Mr. Fordham had already received the thanks of Lord Verulam, Lord Lieutenant of Hertfords.h.i.+re, and was placed on the Commission of the Peace as a magistrate for Hertfords.h.i.+re, the first Nonconformist to be made a county magistrate for Herts. By the time the new Central Workhouse at Royston was built, the worst forms of popular discontent would have subsided but for the action of one or two individuals of note upon whom it is fitting that a few words should here be bestowed.
The princ.i.p.al agents were two clergymen in the district--the Rev.
Thomas Clack, curate of Guilden Morden, and the Rev. Frederick Herbert Maberley, curate of Bourn, Cambs., who had for some time convened meetings of agricultural labourers in their own and surrounding parishes, and harangued them upon the supposed horrors of the new _Poor-law Prison_ to which they would be consigned if they did not rise as one man to stand up for their rights! Growing bolder in their agitation these gentlemen conceived the design of calling a monster meeting from all the parishes belonging to the Royston Union, to be held on Royston Heath in front of the unfinished building. An attack upon, and the demolition of the building, was freely talked about and expected, and from the temper which had been already displayed in former riots, the event was looked forward to with some anxiety! The handbill convening the meeting was of an inflammatory kind, and the new Board of Guardians thought it necessary to call a special meeting of their body at the Red Lion to decide what should be done. The outcome of this meeting was that the Clerk (Mr. Thurnall), Mr. W. T. Nash, and Mr. John Phillips were appointed a deputation to wait upon the Poor-law Commissioners and upon the Home Secretary, to see what measures they would advise, for the Parish Constable and the Beadle, and the swearing in of special constables was about all that the local authority could muster for the preservation of the peace.
This deputation waited upon Lord John Russell, then Home Secretary, with the result that an inspector and a sufficient police force were promised to be despatched from London to Royston on the day before that announced for the meeting. Letters were also sent to the Lord Lieutenants of both counties, and to the promoters of the meeting, warning the latter of their responsibility should any serious disturbance occur.
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The day appointed for the meeting was Wednesday, 22nd June, 1836.
Inside the unfinished building on the morning of that day there is a strange and an anxious company a.s.sembled--the Earl of Hardwicke, Lord Lieutenant of Cambridges.h.i.+re, is there, several local Magistrates, several of the Guardians, and a posse of about a score of Metropolitan police (the County police, as we now know them, had not then come into existence), all a.s.sembled to await the threatened storming of the bastille, as the new Workhouse was called by the agitators! It was market day and the town and neighbourhood of Royston were in a considerable state of alarm and excitement, in consequence of the expected meeting. The handbill convening the meeting had been freely circulated, calling upon the labouring population to ”come in thousands” and a.s.semble opposite the new _Poor-law Prison_! This address was signed by the Rev. H. F. Maberley. The Magistrates of the division issued a caution to the people, and this was placarded about the neighbouring villages, warning all persons that if any breach of the peace took place, every individual present would be liable to be apprehended and punished according to law. As a further precaution, ”A most efficient body of police” was sent down under the command of Inspector Harpur, as stated above.
Meanwhile there was, we are told, by the old chronicler, [_Cambridge Chronicle_] ”a deep feeling among the upper and middle cla.s.ses of society, that imminent danger to the public peace was to be apprehended from a meeting of the labourers called to pet.i.tion on the subject of the new Poor-law opposite a new unfinished house of considerable extent, by a handbill characterising the new building as a new Poor-law Prison, and therefore no one chose to interfere in the discussions of the meeting.”
”The labourers, with a large proportion of women and children, continued to arrive in wagons, carts, and on foot, all through the morning, and they sat down opposite the Workhouse on the road side.”
Being questioned they said ”They expected they had come to pull down the Workhouse, but they were waiting for the gentlemen who called the meeting”! They ”appeared to consider their object one of ordinary duty, as they spoke without excitement or intemperate language.” Soon after 12 o'clock the clerical champion, Rev. H. F. Maberley, arrived, accompanied by the Rev. T. Clack, curate of Guilden Morden, and they soon commenced the great business of demonstrating, but possibly from hearing of the Home Secretary's reinforcements, they a.s.sembled the people on the Heath a distance of a quarter-of-a-mile from the Workhouse, and Mr. Clack opened the proceedings in a jubilant strain with a Scriptural quotation, ”This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Some 1,500 persons, of whom at least two-thirds were said to have been {173} women and children, listened to the harangue ”with listless indifference,” possibly because words did not pull the building down. The Rev. H. F. Maberley declaimed against separating old men and women and the prospective hards.h.i.+ps of the new order of things. The whole proceedings lasted several hours, and a storm of rain did not help the ardour of the crusaders.
At the conclusion, however, the people drew the rev. gentlemen in a wagon through some of the streets of the town and the threatened storm pa.s.sed off without any breach of the peace occurring. The chronicle of the time says:--”The labourers went away apparently dissatisfied with the result, having learned nothing to instruct them,” and ”the whole was the completest failure ever experienced as to any public meeting.”
The Guardians laid the matter before the Bishop of the Diocese as to the conduct of the clergymen named, but in the general satisfaction at the peaceful ending of the affair, things gradually settled down into the system as we now know it.
The old parish Workhouses were sold, pulled down, or otherwise dealt with, and the proceeds were in some cases invested in Consols and still appear occasionally as an item to the credit of the parish in parochial balance sheets. The Royston Parish Workhouse on the Warren was sold by auction and realized L315, leaving, after expenses and the paying of a parish loan, advanced by Mr. Phillips, a balance of L166.
The new Workhouse was commenced in October, 1835, upon the site of an old barn the property of Mr. Luke, which had just been blown down. It was finished in September, 1836, the Royston paupers being removed from the old Workhouse on the Warren and those from the villages brought in, notwithstanding the indignation of the Revs. Maberley and Clack.
For some years the new system was the subject of not a little hostile criticism and the meetings were not always harmonious.